


shake me / wake me / go man go

by activatingAggro (pigeonfancier)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 10:07:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17999798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonfancier/pseuds/activatingAggro
Summary: It rips open its maw, flashing those many-ringed teeth at you as its eyestalks pull back. You’re already moving, hands up - you can’t die in a dream, but like hell you’re going to see - but then the troll onboard murmurs something, warm and musical. The saddleback settles, sucking its eyestalks in reluctantly. Then it starts inching on past again, steadily trundling, and you let out your breath.“Haha, holy shit,” Loxias says, “why’d you touch it?”“Did you just say haha, sister?”“Yah,” she says, smug, and that’s about all the sass you feel like hearing from her.But you keep your hands to yourself after that, locking them firm behind your back as the procession goes by. Now that you ain’t touchin’ ‘em, they’re back to ignoring you. Six saddlebacks, each hosting a troll on its humps. The eldest ones - the largest ones - of the Lunatics are up front, and behind ‘em are their get, the pupas they collect.Loxias takes Riccin on a dreamjaunt, but Nanako proves a little less than thrilled to have her childhood invaded.





	shake me / wake me / go man go

**Author's Note:**

> Back to the fantroll fic times! More RP antics off of tumblr, in the long and short of it, but:
> 
> > Loxias is a brownblooded dreamwalker/precog, and alcoholic, that Riccin - yellowblooded, Mirthful, future helmsmen - is using to navigate their personal identity crisis.
> 
> > Nanako is a jadeblooded psionic, member of the Imperial Fleet, and the over-protective not!sister of Vadaya Urvata, a friend of Riccin. Nanako does not like Riccin.
> 
> > The Lunatics are a nomadic religion of moon-worshippers that operate out of one of Alternia's deserts, and Nanako is a member of this religion.
> 
> Lots of worldbuilding in this one, but hopefully it's still decipherable.

When you knock open the hotel room door, smoke rolls out in one big fume, thick enough that you can see it in the air. Or you could, if your eyes would stop fucking watering. They’re streaming yellow right down the slopes of your cheek once you finally stop coughing, heavy enough that you lay a frond to your face, just to see.

It comes back smog.

“Goddamnit, Loxias,” you snap, and stalk inside.

The hotel that you’ve had her holed up in isn’t expensive. The fuck would you ever drop that sort of cash on some illbred rustblood, so long that she’s bypassed the dirt and gone straight to mud in her veins? It’d be a waste. It ain’t that your girl’s just broke: it’s that she’s nasty, through and through. There’s bottles strewn all across the keratin tile of the floor. A week ago, shit was white. Now, it’s got fucking stains. Worse yet, your shoe keeps fucking sticking.

There’s a lump sprawled across the frayed fabric of the sopor loungesack. At the start of things, you’d thought Loxias might’ve passed off as pretty, if she ever tried. But that was when she was possessed, long-limbed and feral and with an energy that’d burned straight out of her core. Now she’s just limp-limbed, like her bones have been cored with jelly and her spine’s been yanked clear through. There’s nothing pathetic about this shit.

It’s just aggravating, and when you misstep, your heel slipping on a bottle laying half-full on the ground, you ain’t ashamed to say you fucking shriek.

She stirs in a rattle of braids, but is it enough to pull herself all the way up? ‘course it fucking ain’t. She lifts her chin. The braids shift, just enough, to reveal one gloomy eye, skin swollen with the mud of her blood underneath it. “Hey,” she says, plainative, like you ain’t nearly just hit the floor: “- hey, ’m tryin’ to sleep over here.”

“It’s high midnight, sister,” you say, “and the roaches are comin’ out.”

“Huh,” she says, contemplative, and drops her head back down into the cushion.

In the end, you snatch her up by the scruff of her shirt, your fronds curled to keep clear of her braids. She hangs limp from your hand all the way to the bathroom, and even when you toss her into the tub, the motherfucker just oozes. It takes the water hitting her skin - cold as you can make it, cranked hard as it will fucking fall - before she finally stirs, mouth twisted into a mouie, and pushes her braids back.

She doesn’t bother to get out of the tub. She just lets the water run down her in rivulets, practically radiating the sulk coming from her glands, and looks up at you.

“Unnecessary, brah,” she says, and a drop rolls off her nose.

“The fuck are you still sleeping for?” You yank down the shower head so it sprays right onto her, but the only response you get is her flopping onto the side of the tub, looking like nothing better than a wet barkbeast.

“It’s only midnight.” How can one troll sound so fucking petulant?

“Who sleeps until midnight?”

She doesn’t have a response to that. She just oozes deeper into the tub, for all the world like she’s going to sink under the water pooling in it entirely. If you let her, would she drown? The thought’s tempting. Girl’s useful to you, but –

– you have never seen someone so old, who’s quite this much of a fucking mess. It’s a wonder she’s survived to be as old as she is! It’s a fucking tragedy, in more ways than one, and maybe the kindest thing to do would be to call Chiloa over. Make him handle this shit, pull her into the program, or toss her to the IPC as good will, or whatever the fuck he deems necessary.

But then you wouldn’t know what to do at all. Loxias’s the only guidance you have right now, the yarn to follow out of the maze of your goddamn life, and that means she’s your mess now, until she’s served her purpose.

So you snatch her by a horn instead, and haul her up until she’s draped like a dishrag across the rim of the tub instead.

Loxias growls at you, but it’s half-hearted. She’s as dull-fanged as they come, in mind and tooth: the fire’s banking as fast as it flared, her lids falling heavily again as she seems to sink onto the end of the tub. “Lemme sleep,” she says, coaxing, “I’ll dreamwalk. Show you something cool, brah. Don’t have the energy for fortunes.” Her tone oozes towards the accusatory: “- didn’t think you were coming until tomorrow.”

“I’m not keeping you up here ‘cause you’re pretty, sister.” But dreamwalk - now that’s a word. You eye her up, curious, but.. nah, you decide. She ain’t lying. She’s too limp for that, too spineless all the way through to muster up a fib. “You’re here to work. Not get high and fucking drink.”

“Dreamwalking is work,” she argues doggedly. Then she squints at you, pauses like she’s turning over words in her mouth. “Been worrying, yeah? I’ll get you a dream to fix that.”

“If,” she says, “you let me sleep.”

* * *

When you open your eyes, you’re in the Hanhai.

Loxias always looks better in dreams. Younger, too, maybe your age, with dewy eyes and clothes that’re several sizes too big: a black jacket, all leather, that hangs loose on their shoulders, and white patched pants held up by a belt wrapped tight.

When she’s awake, her skin’s always covered. Now, with only a bandeau on, you can see the signs that curve across her collarbone and dip towards her chest, a hundred thousand symbols in every shade of red that look almost like Pheres. The Arietids, shining bright as the meteors they’re named after, and you’re curious on how far back they might’ve gone. Tempted to ask, too, if she didn’t go and clear her throat.

She just raises her eyebrows when you look at her. “Brah,” she says, disbelieving. “Braaah. You comin’?”

There’s always that moment of pause, when you spot the veins in her eyes and the bags underneath and remember: yeah, this’s the same manky-ass trashfire underneath. And the urge dies.

“Yeah,” you say, disappointment curling in on your gut, “sure.”

You’ve never liked the Hanhai much. It ain’t like it’s ever done nothing to you. The fuck is there to do? Once, it’d been a sea. Then the Empress had drained it, and now it’s all sand, white and pearlescent as far as the eye can see. If you dug deep enough under it all, you’d find the spires and buildings of the old seadweller cities, or the personal homes that trolls built and lost in the centuries since. Pheres loves the Hanhai. For a troll willing to work it out, it’s full of shit worth plundering, artifacts best locked away or destroyed, to make sure nobody ever uses ‘em.

But as far as you’re concerned, it’s never been worth enough to work it out, not when there’s zombies to contest. Let the dead keep their secrets. They guard ‘em well enough. And the few towns and settlements within have just never been worth visiting. Port Mina is the shining jewel of the desert, the only place you reckon is really worth visiting, and that’s as far as you’ve ever wanted to go.

That ain’t the case for whoever’s dreaming, though, ‘cause the sun’s high up in the sky, but there’s no sign of anything to be seen. You’re in the heart of the Hanhai now, so close to the center you can’t even see the mountain, and there’s nothing as far as the eye can see.

“Are we even in the right spot?” you hiss at her. “If you’re fucking with me, sister, I will wake both of us up before you can even -”

“Sh!” she hisses back, and then the saddleback mounts the nearest dune.

By the time it’s reaching the bottom, there’s six of them all in a trail, ribbons tied onto the notches of their shells, bells and beads setting off like noisemakers on their sides. Saddlebacks are the finest of mounts, this far into the deserts.

There’s trolls on their backs, covered in white fabric from head to toe, with the fine arches of their horns shining red under the suns light. You’re stepping forward before you think twice about it. Lunatics are a rare lot, content to live in the deep deserts and rarely coming far out of them. You’ve heard about them. Who hasn’t? Back before the Ascension, when adults still roamed freely and the Fleet was little more than a fucking pipedream, motherfuckers had been as common as salt.

Now they’re dead, mostly, save a few straggling remnants, and the survivors hide. You’ve never seen the sect before. Chances are, you never will again, and certainly not like fucking this. So you scramble up the dune, feet slipping on the sand, hands splaying to catch yourself when you fall. It bites into your skin, but shit’s a dream. There’s no gold blood spilling, no matter how much you scuff, and there’s no pain to keep you slow.

So you catch up soon enough.

The trolls pay you no mind on their beasts. Why should they ever? It’s a dream, and you’re a figment, some bit that they won’t see now, and won’t recall in the morning. So you can take your time, drink these motherfuckers in.

You reach out, tugging on the cloth. It’s cotton, you think, left so thin that you can see your fronds through it, and worn soft by exposure. There’s colours woven through it, pinks and limes faded near-white, but they don’t make any signs you’ve seen before. Nah, it’s something different -

\- then it jerks free from your hands when the saddleback rears back, affronted.

It rips open its maw, flashing those many-ringed teeth at you as its eyestalks pull back. You’re already moving, hands up - you can’t die in a dream, but like hell you’re going to see - but then the troll onboard murmurs something, warm and musical. The saddleback settles, sucking its eyestalks in reluctantly. Then it starts inching on past again, steadily trundling, and you let out your breath.

“Haha, holy shit,” Loxias says, “why’d you touch it?”

“Did you just say haha, sister?”

“Yah,” she says, smug, and that’s about all the sass you feel like hearing from her.

But you keep your hands to yourself after that, locking them firm behind your back as the procession goes by. Now that you ain’t touchin’ ‘em, they’re back to ignoring you. Six saddlebacks, each hosting a troll on its humps. The eldest ones - the largest ones - of the Lunatics are up front, and behind ‘em are their get, the pupas they collect.

The rumour in the seatowns, back when you were real young, was that they stole grubs straight from the caverns, to raise ‘em up as fodder and cultists. But all the tales of the Navigressors and the Lunatics get merged, out on the coast, and you don’t reckon that’s true. These aren’t the newly pupated, fat-limbed and round-cheeked. Nah, these are wrigglers, with lusii that trot neatly beside the saddlebacks, or ride in the pouches on their sides.

Wrigglers wrapped up so tight in their shawls and laces that you can’t tell their colours, and you’re so busy peering at ‘em, trying to puzzle it out, you almost don’t notice when a saddleback stops. Then there’s dust in your face as one of the pupas hits the ground next to you in a plume of sand. Standing up, she shakes her hair and wipes her hands like anyone could even fucking notice the sand on her.

Then she tilts her head back, as far as it’ll go, and then back some more. Little mite’s probably one of the smallest on the train, but the rest don’t seem to notice her absence: the saddleback’s trundling on, unbothered, and you’d feel bad for her abandonment, if it weren’t a fucking dream.

“Hi!”

“Hey there,” you say, but she’s not paying you any mind. She’s looking you up and down, ears pinning back, and then -

“Alamekkk,” the pupa says, despairing, and there’s something familiar about the shape of her horns. They’re almost a foot long, looking almost as long as her goddamn body, but when her shawl slips low, you can see a bone brace around her neck, curving across her shoulders for support. “Your skin! So pale - here.” It wasn’t a slip. She’s shimmied out of it in a moment, then she’s just holding it expectantly out to you. “Take, takee, takeee.”

It’s not a question. It’s too small for you at a glance, but this is the way of dreams: it stretches as you pull it up, until you’re slipping something sized to you over your head, settling into the shadows. Were you hot, before? You must’ve been, because even this scratchy fabric’s a relief.

The pupa nods, brisk, like she’s satisfied. “Who’re you?”

“No names,” Loxias says.

“Riccin,” you say, and you’re not expecting the elbow to your side. It might be a dream, but turns out shit still hurts; you double over with a snarl, clutching the spot, but the fucking brownblood’s just glaring, her lip curled with more ire than you’ve ever seen her manage.

“Brah, what the fuck?”

“She asked!” you snap back, sidling to the side, and the pupa’s just watching the both of you, thoughtful. “What’s it gonna hurt, answering a question? I ain’t a fucking savage. I got manners, sister, and there ain’t no call to go ignoring shit, just ‘cause you’re all twitterpatted over the fucking answer.”

“You’re dumb,” Loxias tells you, brisk, and you don’t dignify that as a response, save turning your back.

The wriggler’s sun-dark, with a hide striped green with wounds. You whistle as you bend down, squinting against the light, but ain’t that just the wonder of a dream? It shifts to match you, the moons themselves dimming to let you see all the better.

Poor wretch! There’s jade-bright wounds dug deep into her skin, swirls and designs in a writ you can’t read. It forms lines and circles and triangles within, all curving in on themselves, tangling up like sentences tripping atop of each other. It’d be gorgeous, if it weren’t for the way the skin’s swelling. It’d be depressing, if you didn’t feel like you were a moment from reading the secrets within.

There’s a hundred things you could say. Sympathy’s at the tip of your tongue, but - this is devotion, you think, and the curve of your spine aches at even the thought of that kind of slap. “What’s it say, little jade?” you ask instead, mild.

She’s been watching you. But now she turns over her arms, peering down at the lines carved in like they’re new. “Oh!” The pupa shrugs. “They’re moon writs,” she says, plain. “They hurt. But they’re worth it. Can I ask you something?”

“A question for a question’s only fair,” you tell her.

“Why the fuck are you in my dream?”

“Told you,” Loxias sings from behind you. “Told youuuuuu.”

The pupa’s been squinting up at you. But now she turns her gaze towards Loxias, who takes one look at her and scatters back. Like an afterthought, she grabs hold of your shirt. It’s a dream. It is absolutely a fucking dream, because there’s no way this skinny waif of a reed should ever be able to yank you anywhere - but Loxias hauls you like you’re nothing more than a sack of bananas, back three steps and all the way down the dunes.

The pupa is shrieking, racing after you. Not fast enough: girl’s nothing but a blur in your vision as her body distorts and twists, into something you don’t see. There’s sand in your eyes, kicked up with each kick of Loxias’s step, and tears in them where the dirts getting caught. You squeeze them shut, hard -

\- and when you open them, you’re back in the bathroom, where you’d been curled up against the far wall of the room. There’s water lapping at your heels now. The bathtub’s so filled that it’s overflowed, and Loxias’s just lying like a limp fish over the edge of it.

She looks up at you through her eyelashes. “Thirty percent chance water weight causes floor collapse,” she says, eyes still glowing with psi, and with a curse, you fling yourself at the tub to turn it off.

* * *

**– cofaireLeh [CL] is now trolling obstructedAntiquity [OA]! –**

> CL: hello, helloo, hellooo.
> 
> CL: is nananaaa. talked before, lah, you remember?
> 
> OA:
> 
> OA:
> 
> OA: 'cOURSE I FUCKING Do.
> 
> OA: tALK LIKE HALF THE AUNTIES ON THE GODDAMN STREET, SISTER, SHIT IS A BLAST OF FRESH AIR IN THIS MEALY-MOUTHED HELL. HOW IS A MOTHERFUCKER MEANT TO FORGET A VOICE LIKE THAt?
> 
> OA: a FACE LIKE THAt? ;o)
> 
> CL: ew.
> 
> OA:
> 
> OA: sORRY, SHIT’S A HABIt. :o(
> 
> CL: no berak, leh. bad habit! feel bad!
> 
> CL: anywayyy. good that remember. iunno if know? daya out.
> 
> CL: am in temasek. get lunch, yeah?
> 
> OA:
> 
> OA: uh.
> 
> CL: am meeting friends, lah. woke up, went, ah, ahh, ahhh - do not know daya’s friends.
> 
> CL: should know friends! am battery, why not?
> 
> CL: and friend right in town, lah.
> 
> CL: easy fixxx. d:K
> 
> OA: sHIT, SISTER, AND YOU THOUGHT OF ME? I AM FUCKING flattered.
> 
> OA:
> 
> OA: yEAH, SURE, WHY NOT? A MOTHERFUCKER CAN SPARE SOME TIME FOR LUNCh. :o)
> 
> CL: greattt. d:K
> 
> CL: see you then!
> 
> OA: wAIT, SHIT, WHERE At?
> 
> CL: ummm.
> 
> CL: iunno! will text. (:K
> 
> CL: wait, no leh, you text! you choose! are local, yeah?
> 
> OA: uh.
> 
> CL: you pick by noon.
> 
> CL: bye!

**– cofaireLeh [CL] is no longer trolling obstructedAntiquity [OA]! –**

* * *

Pick a place, since you’re the local, Nanako says, like she ain’t the one talking like a common fucking wharfrat.

Still, you figure it’s probably a test. Isn’t that the way that folks from the IPC just go? Everything’s a fucking test, everything’s a goddamn trial. There’s no common courtesy in the way they act, just chances to prove yourself worth their time or not. Even Vadaya pulls that shit.

And Nanako, you’re starting to think, is just one of the same.

How many times have you seen Vadaya’s battery? Ain’t like the two of you have ever been that flavour of close. But it’d make sense, with the way she acts and the way she bites. Nah, this is a trial to see if you’ll haul her to hawker food or the real shit, and that’s why you’ve purchased an actual fucking reservation at the Kā Kā Lah. It’s the sort of place a Scimitar ought to appreciate, you think.

Least, up until she walks in the door, takes one look, and wrinkles her nose.

Girl’s covered from head to toe in fabric, with a cowlneck that cuts low just to reveal black leather, and a hood that hangs heavy over her face. With the red on her clothes, she could pass as any fucking fleet member - but you know it’s her, because it’s impossible to miss those goddamn horns, the same spiraling mess from your dream. You’d thought she might grow into ‘em, but nah. Now they’re a foot and a half long, if not over fucking two, and it’s only the fact she’s small-framed that keeps her from slamming them straight into the doorframe. As is, she still keeps her head angled low as she makes her way towards your table. When she slouches into the chair, it’s only then that she lifts her head.

The scars have healed well over the sweeps. Pink swirls across her face and under the bright red of her eyes, and psi-eye or not, there’s something uncanny about seeing the Empire’s own colour shining out of a troll.

But the Scimitars are the Empire’s hand on the planet. It makes sense.

“Ka Ka Leh?” she says, dubious. “Really lah?”

More sense than the idea of her wanting to talk to you, just out of the goddamn blue.

“Uh.” You do not sink down in your chair, but you’re tempted. It hadn’t struck you, really, until she went and sat down, but - shit, she’s Sunyah’s age, older than any of you all by fucking half. “They got the best noodles in town, sister,” you say, slow. “Why, ain’t anybody worth comparing.”

Maybe she hasn’t figured out you’re the same troll yet. Maybe she’s just waiting -

\- then she leans forward, snatches hold of your ears in one hand and drags you in by the two of ‘em.

“Why you in my dreams?” she demands. “Not cute! Not welcome! Rude!”

This close, her face’s a scarce inch from yours. She’s not pretty, not really. Girl’s got a beak the size of the Empress’s horns, and the sort of fangs that’d gore a fucker for trying. But there’s something a little charming about the way she’s scowling at you.

And familiar.

“Aw, sister,” you purr, even as your pan squalls, because you’re about to fucking die, “what, your legs tired? 'cause here you are, castin’ around some fucking accusations, but way I see it, you were the one walkin’ through my dreams all damn day -”

She cracks you right across the face.

It’s a casual little thing, more noise than pain, and that’s the worst bit of it all. There’s nothing personal about it. Motherfucker smacks you like she’s tapping her lusus on the ass, perfunctory as fuck, and when you splutter, indignant, she just clicks her tongue at you.

“Nah lah, no jokes,” she scolds you. “Gross! Pupa! Look like robbing school creche? No lah, do not, behave!”

“I am behavin –”

“You are not! Be serious! What you thinking? Cannot just go, eh, am bored, will go through dreams! Go through military dreams!” She shakes her head, hard enough that her hair catches on your nose. "Rude! This because clowns? Clowns no good for morals! No can do voodoos for fun!”

“Sister -”

“Stop. Am talking,” she barks, and holy fucking shit.

Vadaya’s so relaxed. Have you ever seen your cousin with anything less than the utmost of chill? But you’re starting to see why, when his batterymate’s like this. You’d thought him a doormat once. Now, it’s setting in that thought was just some base-ass cruelty.

After all, there’s a difference between being a doormat, and getting stomped into the ground. How the fuck are you supposed to respond to this? What are you even supposed to do with this, save show your throat and pray for mercy? You’ve maligned your poor cousin, but now, you can see where he’s got it all from.

“I’m sorry,” you say, and she lets go of your ears. You sink back in your chair so fast that your knees practically hit the table, then clear your throat, ‘cause she’s watching you, and you know what that shit means. “For gettin’ all up in your dreams. Shit was unintentional. Sister of mine said she’d show me how it was done, just for a lark - didn’t realise it was going to end up with you.”

She leans back in her chair, settling her hands on the table in front of you. She’s got the same metal digits as Vadaya, the amplifiers gleaming under the lights. “And?” she prompts.

Turns out you don’t know shit at all. You’d been scrubbing at the tips of your ears, but now you pause.

Nanako sighs.

“And sorry went in any dreams,” she scolds you. “Without permission, liao, is wrong, wrong, wrong - cannot go foraging in pans for, eh, what, funsies? Is wrong. Is horrible. What if clown, yeah, and you do that? What if sergeant? Lady? Would not worry about ears. They’d take ears.”

You let go of your ears entirely. “Uh -”

“No respond! Just stop. Listen.” She clicks her fangs at you. “And think. Am nice, because Daya friend. Others, no. Don’t do it again. Now respond. Say it.”

“I,” you say, hesitant, “won’t do it again?”

“And sorry,” she says.

“And I’m sorry.”

She nods, brisk. Then she starts undoing the clasps on her hood, where they’re looped in tight around her horns. When she pushes back the hood, her hair’s stark white underneath, with gray roots still setting in up top. Girl’s not pretty. Not even handsome, really, but you’ll give it to her: she’s striking.

And terrifying.

When she looks at you, her eyes still lit with psi, you decide: mostly terrifying.

“Then it’s settled. You clown, lah? Half-paint? Navigressor? Tell me about religion,” she orders, and waves the waiter over. “And you. How you meet Daya, leh? How old are you? Why so much _purple?”_


End file.
